Playing me, playing him: Embodying a player character and its effect on decision-making in video games.

Spiller mig, spiller ham: Embodying en spiller karakter og dets virkning på beslutningstagning i videospil

Pedersen, Emilie Ørtoft Høllede ; Stok, Niels Anders Beckmann

4. term

Medialogy, Master

2019

20

Dette projekt undersøger, om følelsen af kropslig tilstedeværelse (oplevelsen af at være fysisk til stede i en virtuel krop og verden) påvirker de valg, spillere træffer i et videospil. For at teste dette byggede vi et beslutningsfokuseret spil til to platforme: et standard PC-setup og et virtual reality (VR) setup. For hver platform lavede vi også to versioner med forskellig mængde fortælling. På den måde kunne vi se på effekten af kropslig tilstedeværelse i sig selv og undersøge, om en fortælling kunne dæmpe eller skjule den. I alt deltog 72 personer. Vi noterede, hvilke valg de tog, hvorfor de tog dem, og hvor svære valgene føltes. Resultaterne tyder på, at kropslig tilstedeværelse ikke havde nogen signifikant effekt på spillernes beslutninger. Men fundene var ikke så pålidelige som ønsket, så der er brug for mere forskning, før man kan drage sikre konklusioner.

This project examines whether the sense of embodiment (the feeling of being physically present in a virtual body and world) changes the choices players make in a video game. To test this, we built a decision-focused game for two platforms: a standard PC setup and a virtual reality (VR) setup. For each platform, we also made two versions that differed in how much story they included. This design let us look at the effect of embodiment on its own and check whether adding a narrative might reduce or mask that effect. Seventy-two participants took part. We recorded which options they chose, why they chose them, and how difficult the decisions felt. The results suggest that embodiment did not have a significant impact on players' decisions. However, the findings were not as reliable as planned, so more research is needed before drawing firm conclusions.

[This abstract was generated with the help of AI]

Embodiment ; Sense of Embodiment ; Decision-making ; Choices ; Video games ; Games ; Virtual Reality ; VR ; Narrativity

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